[T]he team behind a rapidly growing independent brewery have injected their personalities into the business by literally putting themselves on their products.
Eden River Brew Co, in Penrith – formerly known as Eden Brewery – renamed and rebranded in June.
The brewery has given its new look a personal twist by featuring pictures of its team members on the cans for its core range of modern, hoppy beers.
It is also inviting customers to put their face on a can next year by posting pictures of themselves drinking one of its brews on social media.
The cans – which feature the faces of director Jason Hill, head brewer Linda Stanton, communications and content marketer Giles Brown and designer Jemma Ainsworth – are currently available to order and pre-order at www.edenriverbrewco.uk
Jason said: “Our whole ethos at Eden is to graft hard to make truly exciting and original beers, but have a bit of fun at the same time. We put a lot of ourselves into making the brewery a success and creating beers we can be proud of. I think Jemma’s designs are a clever and fun way of reflecting that, giving the brand a bit of personality and creating a connection between us and our customers.
“Obviously the people who buy and enjoy our beer are vital in supporting us, giving us feedback and encouraging us to move forwards and expand. That’s why we’re inviting people who love Eden to post a picture of themselves drinking a beer on our social media pages with the hashtag #sipspression. Early next year we’ll pick some of our favourite pictures and feature their faces on 2019’s cans.”
Jemma, a graphic design student at University of Cumbria came up with the innovative designs as part of the annual Eden Student Design Project, in which it challenge students to develop the artwork for its beers.
The brewery usually chooses one set of designs for use on a special range of limited edition beers.
However, the quality of the work was so high this year it chose to use a number of designs, including Jemma’s which will feature on its core range of well-hopped, modern 300ml cans.
Jemma said: “I knew that I needed to come up with bold designs to stand out on the shelf and be something original that no-one had ever seen before.
“I went into shops and looked on the shelf and I looked online. But I also didn’t want to look too much into it, because I wanted to create something that was truly original.
“I came up with the idea of the faces because I wanted something that would capture people’s attention as they were walking down the aisle; using people’s faces and eye contact draws people in a lot.
“I also wanted to do something that people could interact with and I had the idea that people could get involved on social media. I thought that would be quite interesting.
“They were really welcoming and friendly people to work with and I learned a lot. I never thought that I would work on a beer can design, but I’ve learned that I like working with packaging. The fact that it is formatted on something 3D, you have to imagine how someone picks it up and interacts with it. It’s more of an experience, which I thought was a really interesting way to look at graphic design.”
Jim Millington, programme leader for graphic design at University of Cumbria, said: “I’m incredibly proud of Jemma, she’s done a fantastic job with her expressive can design.
“She’s really enjoyed the experience and certainly we have enjoyed working with the students but also the Eden River Brew Co. Here’s to working together again next year with a new batch of students and to the amazing and creative designs they undoubtedly will come up with!”
